


the accomplice

by sweetbun_trio



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Humor, M/M, here I go writing another rarepair, these boys are oblivious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24359647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetbun_trio/pseuds/sweetbun_trio
Summary: It had all started when he and Caspar were training, just doing their own thing in comfortable silence on opposite ends of the training grounds as they had started doing since returning to the monastery, and Linhardt traipsed in.“Say, Ashe...Did you used to be a thief?” Ashe silently thanked the Goddess he’d lowered his bow or he surely would have loosed a wild arrow.
Relationships: Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Linhardt von Hevring
Comments: 3
Kudos: 50
Collections: Seteth's Desk Challenge





	the accomplice

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the #setethdeskchallenge

It had all started when he and Caspar were training, just doing their own thing in comfortable silence on opposite ends of the training grounds as they had started doing since returning to the monastery, and Linhardt traipsed in. 

“Say, Ashe,” he drawled while sprawling out. His legs were splayed over the ground below the arrows’ trajectory to the targets, and his back leaned against one of the pillars. Pausing in his practice, Ashe waited for Linhardt to go on. “Did you used to be a thief?” Ashe silently thanked the Goddess he’d lowered his bow or he surely would have loosed a wild arrow. 

“Wh-what?” he stuttered, “where did you h-hear that?” Ashe was very protective of his secret shame, only telling a few friends he knew really well about the full extent of his past.

“I remembered that you were able to open a chest without a key in a battle, so I thought you must have passed the thief certification.” Linhardt’s eyebrows were raised high, an alert and attentive expression for him. 

“Oh! Well, no, I don’t have the thief certification. I took the archer and sniper exams.” Why couldn’t he just lie? Ashe often wondered at his own guilelessness, but he had to tell the truth. Ironically, he thought, it was because of his past life as a thief and how terrible it felt to be dishonest.

Linhardt continued to stare at him. Sweat broke out on Ashe’s brow. “B-but I do know how to pick locks!” he blurted out as the pressure of Linhardt’s silence built. 

“Wonderful, then you can help me,” Linhardt said, and pulled himself up to stand right in front of Ashe. He had forgotten how much he’d grown relative to Linhardt since school, and was struck dumb for a few seconds.

“With what?” Ashe spluttered when his voice returned, giving away his distress.

“I’ll find you when I’m more ready,” was all Linhardt said before slouching out of the training grounds. He seemed oblivious to the way he had agitated Ashe. 

He turned around at the sound Caspar approaching, his heavy steps thudding in the dirt of the training grounds. “What was all that about?” Caspar asked.

Ashe sighed. “I don’t know but I think I just got myself into trouble.” 

“Awww, I’m sure it’s ok,” Caspar laughed, “It’s just Linhardt. He’ll probably take a nap and forget about it or something else will catch his attention by tomorrow.” Ashe hoped Caspar was right.

Caspar was not right. Linhardt did not forget or get distracted by anything else. In fact, Ashe had not been able to shake him for the past week. Every time he thought he’d found a place to read one of his books in peace, or a slow period in the kitchens to perfect the wartime ingredient substitutions for one of his favorite sweets recipes, Linhardt would pop up. It turned out when he was fixated on an idea, nothing could stop Linhardt’s dogged pursuit of what he was after.

This time (and probably usually) what he was after was something Ashe didn’t really understand about crests. What Ashe did understand was that it was something about Flayn and Seteth’s crests, and that he wanted Ashe’s help to break into Seteth’s personal things. Ashe had been subject to exhaustive musings over the logistics and methods of ‘information gathering,’ as Linhardt described it, in Seteth’s office. 

What it sounded like to Ashe was deception at best and maybe stealing at the worst.

He tried to wiggle his way out of it. He tried to insert other mysteries into conversation with Linhardt in the hopes he would find something more interesting to investigate after he started following Ashe around the monastery. He tried flat out saying “no.” Linhardt just waved his hand and continued in that languid, silky voice, telling him he’d already done all the legwork and it would be in and out - all he needed was one lock picked.

The longer this went on, and the more attention Linhardt paid to Ashe, the more uncomfortable he felt. And the more confused he started to feel about Linhardt. Ashe admired Linhardt’s pursuit of his dream of becoming a renowned crest scholar. But he was not happy with Linhardt’s apparent belief that the end justified the means.

Ashe was flustered whenever Linhardt joined him in the dining hall on days something sweet was being served, or when he walked into the library to see Linhardt’s dark green hair splayed over a book he had fallen asleep reading, or when Linhardt came to the training grounds, not to train but just to watch Ashe. Until finally Ashe caved and pleaded with Linhardt that they just do the crime and get it over with. He could figure out his feelings once it wasn’t looming over him and getting in the way.

In the late morning on a day when Linhardt assured Ashe that Seteth was teaching a seminar, Ashe waited a quarter hour in the library after Linhardt left, then got up and tried to look nonchalant as he walked through the second floor corridor to the office. Minutes later, Ashe worked on picking the lock, which was hanging off a small chest Linhardt hoisted with some effort up onto Seteth’s desk. He felt jumpy and not at all sure that he made the right decision to let himself get roped into Linhardt’s plan.

“Would you please stop looking over my shoulder?” Ashe said, exasperated by Linhardt’s obsessive inability to leave him alone. “You’re crowding me. It’s kind of hard to do what you want me to do when you’re smothering me.”

Ashe cast his eyes around, making sure to take in everything in his surroundings for any hint of approaching danger. The door to the office was closed. Just the door being closed would be a dead giveaway someone is messing around in the office, he realized, because Seteth never even closes it. Maybe he should open the door and they could just pretend they were doing something else in the room if they were caught. But with the door closed, they would have a tip-off that they were about to be discovered…

Focusing his attention back on the lock and his picks, he tried again to get this job done so they could get out of here. But his overwrought senses were distracting. He heard Linhardt’s breath and smelled the floral fragrance he used in his long hair, which had fallen forward over his shoulder to tickle the back of Ashe’s neck. 

With a strangled groan of frustration, he turned around to give Linhardt a look, and Ashe was surprised all over again by how close in height they were. And how close Linhardt's long slender form was to him.

“Oh,” Linhardt said, “that’s interesting.”

“What’s interesting?” His eyes landed on Linhardt’s mouth, which was almost in the center of his field of vision.

“Mmm?” Ashe was caught in Linhardt’s gaze like he had cast some kind of dark magic holding him in place. His eyes were big, round, and a shade of indigo that washed over Ashe and threatened to drown him.

Both of them leaned forward almost imperceptibly at the same time, lips meeting lips. Ashe swayed back and rested on the edge of the desk, dazed. He leaned on his palms, bumping the chest and probably scattering papers and quills everywhere but his mind was too woozy to care. 

Linhardt followed his lips, eyes closed, bringing his hands up to each side of Ashe’s face, long fingers slotting in above and below his ears. He pressed his lips against Ashe’s again, still soft, and Ashe responded to his touch. He deepened the kiss, and Linhardt responded in kind, letting him capture his lower lip and slide his tongue into his mouth. Linhardt pulled back and Ashe really was lost in his half-lidded eyes. 

“I ...didn’t know I liked you,” was what Linhardt said. It struck Ashe as a weird thing to say to someone, even if you just realized you liked him after kissing in the office of the Archbishop's assistant after pestering him until he agreed to be an accomplice in whatever it was they were doing. 

Recognizing that his mind was racing, Ashe worked to control himself. “Me neither.” Not exactly true! chorused a small voice in his mind. 

Ashe shifted his weight, feeling the way their bodies touched, fitted together. He let Linhardt move to stand between his knees and stole one more kiss at the corner of Linhardt’s mouth before saying, “I’d be happy to, uh, explore this more later, but we should probably finish up finding what you wanted in here.”

The lock picking went much more smoothly once the tension between them was released. It’s not really a surprise, Ashe figured. After the lock is removed, Linhardt almost shoved him aside with startling strength in his eagerness to see his prize. 

Ashe looked over his shoulder and waited while Linhardt carefully went through the chest, searching for something, but soon felt restless. Rounding the desk to see if he could find an angle to see out the door into the hallway without being seen, he noticed a painting of a dragon.

“This is neat,” Ashe remarked, wondering if it was a dragon from a story, although he didn’t recognize it. The dragon stood on four legs, wings outstretched, and in the foreground, forget-me-nots blossomed.

“What?” Linhardt asked, barely paying attention. “Oh, that is nice...Well, I’m done here, we should probably go,” he said while closing the chest and hooking the lock back onto the clasp. With a grunt he lifted it back up and put it back where he found it. 

Ashe exhaled. He had been controlling his breathing, sipping shallow breaths while steadying himself during the whole encounter. Once he was outside, he gulped air and looked up at the sky. They couldn’t have been in there for more than a half hour. He was relieved. Everything would be alright.

It wasn’t until they were eating lunch that Ashe noticed. He reached into his pocket to run his fingers over his amulet, a nervous habit he’d had for years, but it wasn’t there. His chest tightened and the blood in his veins was suddenly fire pulsing as adrenaline flooded through him. Where had he lost it? Did he have it when he left the library to follow Linhardt? He was pretty sure he’d felt it for reassurance as he walked from the library to the office. 

Oh, Saints, he thought. It must have fallen out of his pocket when he’d been resting against the desk. He really started to panic then. “Linhardt, I need to go back. I think I dropped something important.”

“Ashe, just the man I was looking for.” Ashe whipped around in his seat to see Seteth standing behind him. He opened his mouth but nothing came out.

Seteth held up Ashe’s evil repelling amulet. “This is yours, is it not? Byleth told me you lost it once before, years ago when you were at the Academy.”

“Yes, it’s m-mine.”

“Good. Now that that’s settled, I must ask you,” Seteth looked at him accusingly, “why was it in my office?”

Again, all Ashe could do was open and close his mouth like a fish out of water.

“Oh, that’s my fault,” Linhardt chimed in, wearing an amused expression.

“Go on,” said Seteth while regarding Linhardt as one might a fly who would not stop buzzing around his head.

“I wanted to show Ashe the painting in your office,” Linhardt started. Ashe looked from him to Seteth, who suddenly looked alarmed. “I know he enjoys that sort of thing,” Linhardt continued, “dragons, knights, adventures, all that. Actually, I have been meaning to ask you…” Linhardt paused rather dramatically before launching into a litany of questions, “is there a story about the dragon in your painting? Or is it just a fantasy illustration? I noticed there are forget-me-nots in the painting as well. Is there symbolic meaning to that? Is the painting a memorial? I think I remember Flayn telling me forget-me-nots are her favorite flower? Is -”

“Well, Ashe, here you go. Now that that’s settled, I’ll be taking my leave.” Seteth spun on his heel and walked briskly out of the dining hall. Ashe had never heard Linhardt speak so many words in a row and was bewildered by the change.

“I’m glad that worked as well as I hoped,” Linhardt actually giggled. “I wonder why he still gets all worked up every time I mention Flayn. Surely she’s old enough now he doesn’t need to be so overprotective. Also, I can’t imagine getting that...parental over a sibling. It’s kind of cute that he has a painting featuring her favorite flower, though.”

Ashe finally found his voice and responded, “Thanks for covering for me. Whatever it was, it got him to leave me alone.”

Linhardt shrugged, “It was nothing.”

“So, Linhardt, what did you find out? Was there anything interesting in that chest?” Now that the danger was past, Ashe wanted to know what he had risked all the trouble for.

“Not really,” Linhardt said while yawning, “The whole ordeal was very tiring though. What do you want to do after we finish lunch?” He leaned his elbow on the table to rest his face on his hand. 

The revelation that the whole thing had been for nothing was definitely an exhausting thought. Perhaps Linhardt wouldn’t be so tired all the time if he just had normal hobbies instead of attempted burglary, Ashe mused. At least, burglary tired Ashe out. “I think I could take a nap after all that suspense,” he told Linhardt and yawned.

“I see we’re finally on the same page.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Twitter @sweetbun_trio


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